The present invention relates to a method and a device for controlling and/or determining a variant of a control of a system, a component being capable of being operated and/or implemented in different variants according to the variants of the control.
German Published Patent Application No. 37 38 915 describes a universally usable control unit for control systems. On the basis of an external command, the universal control unit used determines, after assembly, which system configuration is present and then stores this information. Such a universal control unit is then configured for the most complex control system, depending on the objective, and therefore its capabilities may not be fully utilized when using a simpler control system configuration. However, this flexible approach may also involve security risks. For reasons of system security, it may often be required to ensure that only authorized entities enter or manipulate the vehicle variants.
To minimize this security risk, external programming devices or diagnostic devices which are not available to the general public may be used, for example, for programming the data and/or programs. To this end, German Published Patent Application No. 42 11 650 describes a method of variant coding for multiple interlinked control units, in automobiles in particular. The variant identifications for selection of different variants of program data and/or operating data of the individual control units are transmitted from the external programming device or diagnostic device to a certain control unit of the set of control units. Then the variant identifications are transmitted from this specific control unit to the other control units, using a bus system connecting the control units. Each variant identification transmitted is then stored in a memory of the control unit assigned to it at least for the duration of the operation of the control units. A separate control unit program is provided for each variant. This option may be complex, e.g., with respect to development and testing, maintenance, repairs, etc. and therefore may be cost-intensive.
In many applications, it may be desirable to configure the control of a system, i.e., the programs and/or data, to be flexible, so that it may be easily adapted for a large bandwidth of different system variants, because different system variants may require different data. At the same time, the security risk and the possibility of manipulation may be minimized.
The present invention is directed at a method and a device for controlling a system and/or determining a variant of a control of a system, in particular in a motor vehicle, where the control may be implemented in different variants, and one component may be operated in different variants according to the variants of the control, and the component may receive at least one signal over an interface.
When the component is first started, the variant may be adapted and/or preselected as a function of the at least one signal, and any other change in and/or selection of the variant following the first startup may be performed only with authorization. The component here may correspond to a control unit and/or intelligent sensors and/or intelligent actuators.
The security risk or manipulation risk may be avoided as in the related art inasmuch as upon first startup of the component, it automatically determines the variant once only according to the at least one signal received by the component. If the component is installed into an existing system environment, i.e., connected to at least one additional component, the component receives the at least one signal from the additional component via the connecting interface, thus avoiding any confusion in the programming data, i.e., coding data, e.g., in the case of external access, because the determination of the variant, i.e., the corresponding control is implemented in a system-immanent manner.
Expediently, at least one variable representing the variant and/or the signal may be written to a memory of the component on the basis of which the variant is determined, such as, for example, by the component itself.
The authorization may be performed by checking an identification, i.e., the presence or absence of an identification in the memory of the component. By simply checking for the presence or absence of the identifier and/or the data, storage of the identifier and/or the data itself may be used more or less as admission to the authorization step.
The component, in particular the electronic control unit, may recognize the relevant variant of the control automatically, thus precluding any confusion of data, because the variant determination may be performed, for example, in a system-immanent manner.
Therefore, the compatibility of a plurality of partner components, in particular partner control units as well as other components, may be ensured.
In addition, it may also be ensured for reasons of manipulation prevention, for example, that once a component has been installed in a system, it may not readily be installed in another system environment. Monitoring of the data stored once only thus may ensure that the system environment corresponds to the learned data.
Making a controlled change in and/or selection of the stored data and thus of the variant exclusively through authorization, e.g., through an authorized tool, nevertheless may make it possible to transfer the component to another system environment, although this may need to be done by an authorized entity.